As an independent academic, researcher, political analyst and commentator, I have several observations concerning candidates for the 2024 presidential nomination.
First, as to the GOP, albeit only two of the four mentioned remain, I would rank candidates as follows on the basis of danger to humanity and world peace: most dangerous, Nicky Haley (a Biden clone and Deep State shill); then, Ron DeSantis, Donald Trump and Vivek Ramaswamy. Ramaswamy seemed the most interesting, notwithstanding his Hindu inspired Islamophobia and reminded me of Tulsi Gabbard in some respects, but, as in the case of DeSantis, he has acknowledged the inevitable and dropped out. There were other GOP candidates but they really had nothing to offer, indeed, as in the case of Haley, most were sponsored and paid for by pro-Biden, Deep State loyal Democratic Party related donors. Of course, ranked on the basis of lousy personality, pomposity, apparent ego and childishness, no one can touch “the” Donald. Haley refuses to abandon her quest but that may be a preplanned Deep State strategy to cause Mr. Trump to expend resources ahead of the real contest in November. Ms. Haley and the Deep State are as friendly as is Mr. Biden and the Deep State. Cozier than that one cannot get.
On the Democratic Party side, well, there is no side although two candidates Dean Phillips, a Biden clone who feels Biden is just too old and infirm, and Marianne Williamson, a talanted and interesting non-politician, are running. However, the ill named Democratic Party has refused to organize debates and the corporate media is doing all it can to cooperate by rendering everyone but Mr. Biden invisible. Still, Ms. Williamson bears consideration. On the worst to best basis therefore, Ms. Williamson seems best, followed by Mr. Phillips (as neutral, or neutered, as one can get), and then, in last place, the worst candidate from any party, movement, etc., perhaps ever, the eternal warmonger and merchant of personal greed and corruption, “Genocide Joe”, aka, Mr. Joseph Robinette Biden.
Independents and third party candidates are very interesting and provide the most intelligent, competent and honest candidates so, of course, they are carefully facing assassination by silence. For the record, and in their case, in no particular order given that they are all pretty good, I would rank the top three as follows: Cornel West, an Afro-American philosopher, academic, civil rights leader, political activist and pacifist as the best, although his campaign seems terminally hokey; then, his former running mate (she was at the top of the ticket, he was in the second spot), perpetual Green Party candidate, Jill Stein, who shares most of Mr. West’s political perspectives but is a Jewish woman, rather than an Afro-American male; and, perhaps most interesting but with a fatal flaw, the most recognized candidate among the independents (largely because of his family name), Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. He is, of course, the son of the late senator, attorney general and assassinated presidential candidate whose name he bears, and the nephew of the late, assassinated president, John F. Kennedy. Mr. Kennedy shares many of Dr. West’s and Ms. Stein’s progressive perspectives but is apparently owned, lock, stock and barrel, by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), not unexpected given the reality that his father was assassinated by a Palestinian, but still, his tolerance for Israeli genocide and ethnic cleansing pretty much neutralizes his many positive qualities for most people who might otherwise have been inclined to support him.
The real question is, of course, given realities associated with the United States electoral system as impacted by lax voting standards and requirements; interference by the legal and penal system as well as the intelligence agencies; interference by most of the owners of major Internet platforms; and, the utter lack of objectivity by the corporate press (most in favor of Democrats, no matter what, but one in favor of Republicans on the same basis), what difference do candidates make, or the will of the electorate for that matter???
Of course, as in 2016, all of us but especially the Deep State may be surprised. But I doubt it. They’ve learned their lesson. The one sure thing is that the best person running, the most ethical, most experienced, with the best judgment, hasn’t a chance.
Good (and bad news) from another source concerning this year’s federal election, the person who would have been the best presidential candidate (he once was, but was trounced), Dennis Kucinich, is running for the House of Representatives again, albeit this time, wisely, as an independent. Goooo Dennis!!! Gooo independents!!!! The bad news is that he is not running for president. The corporate press, of course, is doing all it can (again) to make him invisible so any help readers can provide to overcome that tactic would, I’m sure, be greatly appreciated. He was Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s campaign manager but resigned when Mr. Kennedy’s anti-Palestinian bias led him to support Israeli atrocities. Good for him (Dennis, not Robert), his integrity, unlike that of most politicians, is neither for sale nor for lease. _______
Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador. He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.
To an objective political observer, admittedly an endangered species as, among other things, he or she would need to have been either politically neutral or supportive of political movements with no chance of attaining or sharing in political power, January 6, 2021 was a reaction against a series of real insurrections that began more than four years earlier, insurrections which began during early November of 2016 when the leadership of the Democratic Party orchestrated a slow motion coup. A coup orchestrated in conjunction with most of the corporate media, the outgoing Obama administration, a large portion of the federal bureaucracy (especially the intelligence agencies and the Department of Justice), a significant portion of the judiciary at both state and federal levels and traditionalist members of the Republican Party (who vehemently opposed their party’s candidate). The insurrection, in large part involved a quest for autocratic power by political professionals tied to the military-industrial-intelligence complex but included many decent citizens who were terrified of the president-elect, both because of the successful media campaign against him as well as because of his “shoot-himself-in-the foot pomposity, belligerence and immaturity.
The insurrection was clear and obvious on January 20, 2017, inauguration day, when massive demonstrations against the new president were held in diverse parts of the country but especially in the capital, Washington, D.C., seeking to disorder the inauguration where the “protestors” swore to do everything in their power to disrupt the new administration, asserting that the new president was not their president. Unlike the events of January 6, 2021, those efforts were carefully coordinated, orchestrated, funded and organized with former attorney general Eric Holder as the point person. Mr. Holder had been charged by the outgoing president, Barak Obama, to lead a “civic” organization purportedly engaged in coordinating large scale, full time activities to “promote democracy”. As important as the Holder led organization was the attack on the new president launched by the Democratic Party in Congress and through the bureaucracy alleging that Hillary Clinton’s defeat in the 2016 presidential election had been due to illegal foreign interference by the Russian Federation. In the federal bureaucracy, the insurrection was stimulated through a series of continuing leaks of both classified information and rumors, most of which lacked serious merit. Finally, concurrently with the foregoing, an ongoing series of nationwide violent disturbances, including takeovers of government property were coordinated with the assistance of local elected officials, purportedly in protest of police abuse of power resulting in the deaths of a number of people who were apparently, but not always, involved in illegal activities.
Supporters of the newly elected president watched all of the foregoing in dismay, protesting the lack of related enforcement of applicable laws and, concurrently, the whole country was put through the spectacle in Congress and in the Justice Department referred to as Russiagate. The new president was accused of violations of the emoluments clause of the Constitution because his long established businesses continued to operate and a number of his supporters were promptly indicted by a hostile Department of Justice as unregistered foreign agents under rules that apparently did not apply to his political opponents. They still don’t. Nor, apparently, does the emoluments clause.
During the 2020 electoral cycle, as evidenced in information that became public when Elon Musk acquired Twitter, all the major social media platforms, major portions of the federal bureaucracy (especially the intelligence agencies and Department of Justice), all conspired to obfuscate evidence unfavorable to the incumbent’s opponent in the presidential election and to promote disinformation unfavorable to the incumbent, as well as to deprive the incumbent of access to most major media, social as well as corporate. In addition, purportedly based on measures required to avoid the consequences of the Covid 19 pandemic, most states controlled by Democratic Party affiliated governors relaxed restrictions designed to avoid electoral fraud by expanding access to both receipt and return of electoral ballots through mass mailing without required voter requests, and enabling their return, not by voters but by third parties, something anathema worldwide in states that seek to promote electoral integrity and avoid a market in votes.
The result of the foregoing was that an important plurality of the electorate lost confidence in the electoral results, especially when a barrage of mail-in ballots, many harvested by third parties and subject to discrepancies involving dates and signature verification, arrived at the last instant changing the anticipated electoral results. The foregoing seemed especially egregious in elections in the State of Georgia were many residents of foreign states were encouraged to move their voting domicile to Georgia in order to permit them to vote there. While problematic the issue became acute when a runoff was required in elections to the Senate and it was suspected that voters who had already cast ballots in other states, moved their voting domicile and were allegedly permitted to vote in the second round of the elections, although they’d not been registered in the first round. Numerous complaints of voting irregularities and improprieties were lodged all over the country but, in stark contrast to the allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 elections, the vast majority of such complaints were dismissed on procedural grounds and few were in fact investigated, exacerbating the suspicion that the election had been “rigged”.
On January 6, 2021, Donald Trump was still president of the United States and called for massive but peaceful protests, much the way the Democratic Party did in 2017, but also, to assure that protests did not get out of line, he urged that federal troops be deployed to protect the Capitol, an offer rejected by the Democratic Party leaders who controlled both the House of Representatives and the Senate. In the United States infiltration of political and civic movements by local, state and federal agents has become normal and the groups that organized the proposed protests for January 6 were thoroughly infiltrated, apparently not only by agents charged with gathering intelligence, but by agents provocateur who apparently participated in encouraging some of the protesters to invade the Capitol grounds in order to delay certification of the results of the 2020 presidential election by the Democratic Party controlled Senate while a member of the Republican Party still served as that bodies presiding officer. Apparently, some hoped that the vice president would order an investigation of the claims of electoral fraud and delay the certification but in that, they were very mistaken. A small group broke off from the massive protests and apparently, in many cases with the assistance of Capitol police, invaded the Capitol seeking to occupy it. Something not common but not unheard of either in other protests during the past century. To many of them, the Capitol represented the most appropriate site to engage in political protest, but some of them crossed the line and engaged in ludicrous activities as though they were souvenir shopping or engaging in photo sessions. There was some violence but the only serious violence was that taken by federal agents and police against the trespassers, in one case, involving what appeared to be the type of abusive taking of life which had led to the prior year’s Black Lives Matter protests. It is interesting to reflect on the purported terror the trespassers caused among the members of Congress present, members from both parties, members despised by most of the electorate with an approval rating at the time of only 20%. That approval rating is now even lower. Perhaps they have good cause to fear the electorate which, however, while disapproving heartily of Congress as a whole, keeps reelecting the same people in their own districts.
The consequences of the protests and trespass on January 6, 2021 were completely different than the reactions to myriad protests during the prior four years, many of which involved violence and takeover of government property on a long term basis, but few if any charges or prosecutions. Instead of investigating the allegations of electoral irregularities which led to the protests concerning the results of the 2020 elections, many of the protestors as well as the trespassers were charged with serious crimes, with many prosecuted, found guilty and, if they dared to fight the charges, sentenced to lengthy periods of incarceration. The fact that they honestly believed they were performing their duty to protect the Constitution was, despite constitutional guarantees and especially the provisions of the Declaration of Independence, deemed irrelevant. As was the comparison with the activities of the four prior years.
The last three years have done nothing to diminish the absence of faith in the legitimacy of the electoral system. Indeed, flagrant attempts to defeat democratic (small “d”) support for the ex-president have increased, with the full weight of the judicial system at both the state and federal level, both the penal and civil systems, weaponized to prevent the former president, who leads all the presidential polls, from returning to power; to prevent him from even appearing on presidential ballots. That, of course, reinforces rather than diminishes the certainty among those who believe that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen”, that they were right, and that those involved in the disturbances at the Capitol three years ago were brave patriots fighting to preserve, rather than to overthrow democracy.
Many believe (with cause) that the electoral systems in purported democracies all over the world are unreliable, and that includes many in the United States. They may well be right. They are probably right. Even if votes are actually counted accurately, as to which there is now serious doubt, manipulation by the corporate media, social media, the bureaucracy and the judicial system has become fairly obvious. That is a systemic problem in a system where selection of members of the judiciary is a thoroughly politicized process and where self-serving billionaires not only control all media, but own it, and have the technological tools to completely manipulate it.
The issue of a downward spiral involving geese and ganders is now very concerning. If Mr. Trump regains power, what happens next? The bureaucracy is so thoroughly entrenched, as is the judiciary, that attempts to reform them would require massive dismissals, something that the courts could easily obstruct for at least four years. Calling for a new constitutional convention may be an answer, but the specter of declaration of a state of insurrection, martial law and the emergence of a permanent, formal dictatorship seems all too likely. The former may be the case regardless of who wins given that another election deemed stolen may well lead to a real insurrection, and as Abraham Lincoln taught us, the only way to deal with real insurrections is through an autocratic dictatorship. Not that we’re all that far from such a situation now.
Donald Trump is not the cause of the foregoing problems, although he may well be a catalyst. It is hard to understand, given his personality and mannerisms, how so many voters support him, but they do. And, as in the case of so many who vote for Democratic Party candidates although they loath them and their policies, many Trump supporters support him, I strongly suspect, because they loath the party of perpetual war, ever increasing defense and intelligence budgets, foreign intervention and polarizing woke policies, the Democratic Party. And because in both cases, although other options exist (in this electoral cycle, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Jill Stein and Cornel West come to mind), they are frozen out of the quest for power by the corporate media and the duopolous dictatorship under which we’ve lived all of our lives.
As an aside, one wonders how those who celebrate the 4th of July can feel so opposed to political insurrections by citizens who honestly believe in the principles enunciated in the Declaration of Independence celebrated on such date. Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, believed that such reactions were healthy and ought to take place at least every twenty years. While to me that seems extreme, given our current polarization and the extent to which our civil and political liberties are being curtailed, I acknowledge that populist reactions from both the left and right wings of the political spectrum appear to have reached a boiling point. Given this sad state of affairs, one obvious to those of us who live abroad but apparently invisible to too many of those who live in the United States, the future certainly bodes ill for the United States, but as far as most of the world is concerned, that may not be a bad thing.
Things on which to reflect, seven plus years after the start of the successful Democratic Party insurrection of 2017. _______
Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador. He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.
The concept of democracy in conjunction with governance seems a sacred cow, unfortunately, a dysfunctional sacred cow given that the concept of democracy is neither understood nor respected and that what is required for the constitutionally guaranteed “public welfare” is efficient, transparent and honest governance with the capacity for long range planning and for providing its constituents with the opportunity to fully realize their capabilities and to lead peaceful, comfortable, happy and fulfilled lives. That is certainly not what exists anywhere today. Rather, we have self-perpetuating systems built on pillars of omnipresent corruption implemented through corrupt mass media and administered by corrupt entrenched bureaucracies. Human rights, as the long-term Israeli genocide in Palestine supported by the United States and NATO makes clear, are mere delusions.
There are two principal poles for what is considered democratic governance, presidential systems with legislatures elected for fixed terms, and parliamentary systems which meld legislative and executive functions for variable terms, the exact length depending on how well the executive, which stems from the legislature, and the legislature are able to function collaboratively. The latter is both more democratic and more coherent, but has its own internecine flaws. In addition, there are forms of governments that require voters to participate (or else), generally in uniparty Communist systems, the most successful being those in the Peoples Republics of China and Vietnam, but according to the western press at least, they apply serious restrictions on personal liberty.
Looking at the most efficient governments, those most able to function strategically as well as tactically, it appears that long term executive leadership is essential, leadership such as that demonstrated in Germany during the long chancellorship of Angela Merkel and in the Russian Federation during the Putin era and the aforementioned Chinese and Vietnamese systems. Of course, corrupt and inept long term leadership, such as that in Egypt, is awful. Trusting that a majority of the people make the best electoral decisions has proven a fallacy, largely because the “people” are not free to select candidates, that function in reality being effected through a partisan filtering system controlled by purported elites and now, imposed in countries like the United States through blatant judicial manipulation as well. In addition, the resulting disinterest results in lack of participation so no candidate is likely to ever receive more than 50% of the eligible vote, the quintessential aspect of democracy.
If the foregoing is accurate, then perhaps we need to consider how to implement a meritocratic rather than democratic method of selecting our leadership on a long term basis, but a method subject to earlier democratic revocation for misfeasance or malfeasance and with significant personal penalties in the case of any such revocation. It could, for example, involve, in the first instance, a selection process embodying the philosophy of the original Electoral College in the United States, with a democratic revocatory process exercised both periodically, say every five years, or on the spot if invoked by a significant portion of the electorate dissatisfied with the results of the incumbent leader. Electoral participation by the citizenry would, as it was in ancient Athens, be a duty and not a right, with serious consequences for shirking it or exercising it in a corrupt manner (e.g., selling or renting it). It smells a bit too much like the fascist ideal of an overall, all-powerful leader, except for the revocatory mechanisms but those make all the difference. Admittedly, the concept needs to be polished a bit with a check and balance mechanism such as a negative legislature, an elected body charged with political control functions and the ability to veto executive decrees (which would replace traditional legislative functions), but not responsible for enacting legislation. A multi cameral negative legislature would be best, one chamber being selected democratically, one based on pluralistic concepts and one selected meritocratically based on expertise in diverse areas but all three chambers voting as one. Of course, an independent judiciary would be essential, but not one charged with constitutional control or review, as would an independent body controlling the electoral system, perhaps a body selected by the legislature. The most serious penalties under the penal system would be reserved for violation of political and judicial duties, pretty much the way it is today in the People’s Republic of China.
If it ain’t broke don’t fix it is a saying reflective of a great deal of common sense but one that does not apply to our current models of governance.
Something to at least consider, although implementation in the face of the entrenched and ruthless deep state makes any kind of real reform improbable. _______
Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador. He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.
It’s a beautiful, sunny Saturday in the city in the sky. The one set among snow clad peaks and thermal springs near an adjacent volcano or two and the remnants of several glaciers. The one set atop the central range of the Colombian Andes in the midst of a sea of mountains dressed in diverse verdant shades. It seems summery although in the Northern Hemisphere, the part of our planet in which this part of Colombia is set, it is late autumn, just short of winter. But then, this close to the equator, seasons tend to meld and shift and be measured in hours rather than months.
The world seems as bad as it’s been since the second war to end all wars a bit over three quarters of a century ago, all the lessons it purportedly taught at best unlearned but more they were probably just fictitious attempts at justifying unjustifiable terminal follies. Again. After all, the second war to end all wars took place less than two decades after the first war to end all wars ended. And wars? Well, they’re just fine, in fact, perhaps healthier than ever.
Still, … as individuals here and there, life plows on, life: full of interpersonal challenges and triumphs, its own interpersonal beauty and mystique artfully masking our own errors and mistakes.
The Global South (which ironically includes Russia and China and Iran but definitely not the Ukraine) seems to be making headway in its quest for liberation from the constant abuse, humiliation and looting that flows from the North. But not without severe challenges as the Global North has no intention of brooking what it considers insolence by lesser species. By people almost but not quite human.
Notwithstanding the hypocritical “woke”, condescension still rules.
Still, … there is a scent of a different sort of future and lingering echoes seem to wonder whether such future will be better or just filled with shadows from the past, and whether the images we’ll see in our future mirrors will reflect who we’ve been, or we claim to have been, or who we wish we had been, or who we’d like to be, or who we’ve been forced to become. Hopefully the images that stare back at us will not be too much like those of those who for so long have oppressed so many. Wishful thinking, I know, but “if our reach does not exceed our grasp, then what’s a heaven for”, as Robert Browning wrote. But then, he was a poet, not a politician, a journalist or a historian (the illusory professions).
Omnipresent, dystopia seems to rule. We seem to be a people in transition, greedily tearing down the past without any agreement on what will replace the corrupt social institutions that have been decaying, putrefied for millennia. Decaying but refusing to die. That confuses and polarizes us as we’re manipulated by the worst among us, the Northern hegemonic wannabe leaders who refuse to let go and definitely decline to share, but who still exercise almost total control. Yet, “almost” is an optimistic harbinger, a qualifier that hints at possible changes, perhaps even beneficent changes.
Who can tell?
But we can hope.
Especially on a beautiful sunny Saturday in early December, one in which at least some of us are safely ensconced among some of those we most love, … at least for the day.
The carnage, genocide and ethnic cleansing underway in Palestine by the worst cultural descendants of the tribe which, after looting Egypt, went on to plunder and murder every man woman and child in ancient Jericho, continues unabated despite popular condemnation in the Global South and even, among an enlightened minority in Europe, the United States and even Israel, although, from here in the heights of the Andes, as in the United States and Europe, to some, that all seems very far away. Far enough away so that the screams of pain and dying gasps and mourning and lamentations are barely audible and thus, perhaps, at least for them, can be sanitized and washed away.
Or at least shouted down and obfuscated through carefully crafted rhetoric, with reckoning postponed, if not for ever, at least for another day.
After all, who mourns for ancient Jericho today? _______
Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador. He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.
Another strange Thanksgiving Day is on the horizon. They’ve all been strange though.
It’s always been a day in which descendants of European colonists enjoy gorging themselves in banquets and eventually, watching football games, but one in which indigenous people in North America reflect on how their generosity was repaid with ethnic cleansing and genocide.
North American indigenous people can probably empathize with Muslims who sheltered and protected Jewish people for over a millennium but were then rewarded with the theft of Palestine and, of course, with ethnic cleansing and genocide as well.
Thanksgiving Day will probably be remembered this year by indigenous people everywhere, remembered but not celebrated. Indigenous people whose lands were stolen and who were subjected to ethnic cleaning and genocide, a day like Columbus Day. One in which to reflect on the hypocrisy inherent in colonialism, whether in the Americas, in Africa or in the Middle East.
Today, this year, 2023, it’s a day on which to reflect on the hypocrisy associated with the phrase “never again” and with other days remembering holocausts. Holocausts as ancient as Jericho and as new as the one during World War II. Or the one that has been occurring in Palestine since 1948. _______
Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador. He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.
Israel, the land of nine million Eichmanns who can’t grasp that Palestinians rightly feel for them the emotions that survivors of the Holocaust felt for the worst of the Nazis, and that those feelings are spreading to people all over the world, but especially in the Global South. And that those feelings are not expressions of antisemitism but of disgust with Israeli genocide, mass murder and ruthless ethnic cleansing.
Too many people of Jewish descent respond to criticism of the new holocaust, the one perpetrated by Israel on Palestinians, by asserting that only Jews can understand the justification for what are to others obviously crimes of lesse humanidad, but how would they answer a Nazi sympathizer who made a similar claim to a Jew, that not being a German Nazi, a Jew could never understand the justifications for what the Nazis did.
Too many people of Jewish descent may feel that way but far from all as a resounding echo answers loudly from far and near: “not in our name!” _______
Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador. He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.
The ubiquitous calls for a ceasefire in Palestine miss the mark. What is required is the fulfillment of the promises hastily made at Nuremberg following the second war to end all wars as victors vengeance disguised as justice took its toll and a promise was made: “Never Again!” A promise which immediately proved impossible to keep as the most prominent of the Nazi’s victims, those whose vengeance was extracted at Nuremberg, almost immediately became the victimizers, exalting in the memories of the fate of ancient Jericho and seeking to duplicate it in Palestine.
What is needed is accountability and implementation of the rules of law established as res gestae at Nuremberg. Mass murder seeking genocide and ethnic cleansing, crimes of lesse humanidad, must be punished and the appropriate punishment was established at Nuremberg. Mass murderers, whether few or many, must be held to account, whether directly involved, as in the case of Israel (and other countries), or indirectly as in the NATO countries that supply and resupply Israel with the means to engage in the mass slaughter of innocents in clear violation of International Law, of Humanitarian Law, of the laws regulating what is prohibited in armed conflicts or during occupations, even if the occupation is three quarters of a century old.
A cease fire is not enough.
The Palestinian State already recognized by civilized countries, one within the borders established by the United Nations in 1948, or at least those existing before the “Six Day War”, must be universally recognized and protected, and such Palestinian State must be sovereign and independent, free to ally itself with whomever it will, but subject to the res gestae that purportedly governs us all.
And the Palestinian dead and maimed during the past quarter century deserve the same memorialization as do the victims of Nazi concentration camps, gas chambers and crematoriums, as do the victims of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And the Palestinian State and the descendants of the Palestinian dead and maimed deserve reparations in the hundreds of billions of dollars from Israel and those NATO countries that enable Israeli crimes of lesse humanidad.
It is time to take the promises made following the second war to end all wars seriously, and to shun all those that refuse to do so in every way possible. The BDS movement is not enough. Remember, as the justices at Nuremberg proclaimed (albeit hypocritically, no allied personnel engaged in comparable crimes were judged): “following orders is no defense”, and as they should have added, “voting to elect those who facilitate crimes of lesse humanidad, anywhere, is no better”. _______
Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador. He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.
As of October 29, 2023, nearly 3,500 Palestinian children had been murdered by Israeli military personnel and an additional 1,000 are missing, presumably buried in the rubble of Gaza during the preceding three weeks. An additional 6,000 Palestinian adults were also liquidated and an unknown number are missing, while almost a million have been uprooted from their destroyed homes. Of course, that is sort of traditional, immediately after its founding Israel expelled more than 800,000 Palestinians from their homes almost overnight during 1948 and “appropriated” (stole) their land and possessions, an event known as the Nakba. One might call the past three weeks Nakba II, or more accurately, the Nakbanth. There have been too many Nakbas to accurately keep track.
While the past three weeks have involved a significant increase in indiscriminate extra judicial killing of Palestinians by Israelis, it was merely a continuation of official Israeli policy since 1948, with peaks and valleys to be sure, but such attempted annihilation of Palestinians, glossed over as merely “ethnic cleansing”, has been unabated. The hunting of Palestinians by Israeli military personnel and settlers is a sick reality akin to the worst historical violations of human decency, let alone rights, actions akin not only to those of the Nazis but of the Huns and then the Mongols, and to United States’ soldiers and settlers with respect to the indigenous population of North America were bounties were paid for indigenous scalps without differentiation between age or gender.
In the case of Israel, the justification for such inhumanity goes back millennia to old Hebrew genocidal traditions, traditions which are biblically recorded as far back as the genocide committed against the inhabitants of ancient Jericho, and involves a Hebraic version of the Nazi policy known as Lebensraum, one not only sanctioned, but commanded by the Hebrew deity, Yahweh, a deity who, ironically, is the same deity worshipped by Israel’s current Palestinian victims. Perhaps the saddest irony is that Palestinians are much closer genetically to ancient Hebrews than are the Israelis. They are the descendants of the Jewish people who stayed in the “Holy Land” instead of migrating away after the Roman destruction of the second Hebrew Temple, and who were, in large part, first forced by the Romans of the later Christianized Empire to convert to Christianity, and then, forced to convert to Islam by conquering Arab Muslims, a faith much closer to their original Judaism than was Christianity. Current Israelis on the other hand are an amalgam, with Hebrew roots, to be sure, but primarily comprised of converts to Judaism from diverse European ethnic groups, primarily descendants of the ancient Eurasian Khazars but including many others.
Still, murder is murder, genocide is genocide and impunity is impunity. Hypocrisy reigns, seasoned with hubris, especially with reference to the phrase “Never Again” and to memorials remembering and honoring one segment of those who perished in the series of events during the first half of the twentieth century collectively referred to as the Holocaust, memorials that do not include remembrance of the Soviet citizens slaughtered, or the residents of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, or of Dresden or Tokyo. The height of such hypocrisy, of course, in addition to the creation of the embryonic State of Israel by the United Nations in 1948, in Palestine rather than say, in Bavaria, involves the decisions of the tribunals established by the victors in the second war to end all wars in the cities of Nuremburg and Tokyo which authorized selective additional murder and torture, in the name of justice and humanity and, of course, as deemed necessary to assure that what is happening in Palestine today, would never occur. Not all that successful I’d say.
Odd how the term anti-Semitism has morphed from an attitude of unjustifiable actions and attitudes against members of the Jewish faith based on their religious beliefs into defense of genocide and ethnic cleansing, and opposition to truths concerning related realities. Fortunately, a great many Jews refuse to accept the commission of genocide and ethnic cleansing in their names and are prominent among those protesting against Israel. The same is true of the populations of many of the countries supporting and defending the Israeli annihilation of Palestine and the Palestinian people. Perhaps they’ll remember the forgoing when next they vote in purportedly democratic elections.
Something to think about as the descendants of the victors in the second war to end all wars employ the same tactics and excuses as did the losers, and as a third “war to end all wars” becomes more and more likely.
Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador. He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.
Perhaps it’s time to reevaluate the premises on which World War II has been judged. After all, apparently the problems with genocide and ethnic cleansing which purportedly differentiated the two warring camps may have had more to do with the methods with which those two purported crimes against humanity were implemented, or perhaps the numbers involved, rather than with they’re having been undertaken. Gas bad! Bombs good. That was sort of clear when Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed but seems absolutely clear now with the Israeli destruction of the Gaza Strip and elimination of its troublesome population.
Interestingly though, United States courts at both the state and federal level have ruled that execution through use of gas chambers does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment; see, e.g., Hunt v. Nuth, 57 F.3d 1327 (4th Cir. 1995), Gray v. Lucas, 710 F.2d 1048 (5th Cir. 1983) and the Supreme Court decision in Gomez v. Fierro, 519 U.S. 918 (1996). To violate the 8th Amendment to the United States Constitution’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment it would need to involve some sort of torture, such as dismemberment (as results, for example from non-nuclear forms of bombing).
Hmmm, so just what is the difference?
Given the foregoing, perhaps the Nazis, while extremely unpleasant towards diverse ethnic and social groups executed in gas chambers (e.g., Jews, Gypsies, sexually deviant groups as measured by standards at the time, etc.), where less culpable of crimes against humanity, at least in the manner of execution if not in numbers, than today’s Israel. Since today’s Israeli campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing against non-Jews in the area of Greater Israel (the Nazi concept of lebensraum comes to mind) have been deemed appropriate responses to feelings of national insecurity and reprisals for rebellion such as those which occurred during the second war to end all wars in the Warsaw ghetto and elsewhere; perhaps Germans of all stripes are owed an apology, perhaps the decisions of the Nuremburg tribunals need to be vacated, and perhaps appropriate compensation should be paid to the descendants of those executed and otherwise punished erroneously in such trials as well as in the similar trials held in Tokyo.
As current Israeli leaders have specified, no rules involving human rights or proscriptions against lesa humanidad are applicable to military reprisals against groups deemed undesirable or inconvenient in light of national objectives.
Case closed, finally!!! It’s only logical. Everyone is innocent except, of course, for the victims. _______
Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador. He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.
Sedition is defined as “overt conduct such as speech or organization which tends toward rebellion against the established order and includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent toward, or insurrection against, established authority”. It thus seems an essential tool for the implementation and operation of a real democracy, one free of the fetters of self-perpetuating oligarchies and thus, anathema to self-appointed elites while concurrently essential to populism in the sense that populism involves the real exercise of democracy notwithstanding institutional impediments. Sedition would seem to have been the essence of Thomas Jefferson’s belief that the established order should be seriously challenged every generation. However, Jefferson was great at intuitive libertarian truths albeit hypocritical as to their implementation.
Sedition was and is a sine qua non of the United States Declaration of Independence, of the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and indeed, of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. The United States and most so-called modern democratic systems were founded on the basis of sedition. However, sedition is considered inherently illegal in every legal and constitutional system. It is akin to heresy in organized religions and thus, as in almost everything having to do with the exercise of power over others, its proscription is an exercise in abject hypocrisy.
Sedition, “apparently the most essential tool for a libertarian society”: something on which to reflect as the United States and other so-called Western governments drift further and further away from libertarian democracy and closer and closer towards elitist authoritarian dictatorship (assuming that they’re not already there). _______
Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com, a commentator on Radio Guasca FM, and an occasional contributor to the regional magazine, el Observador. He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.
Guillermo Calvo Mahé 